Chapter 3: The Vow in a Strange Tongue
The climb to Edinburgh Castle was less a journey than an assault. The stone seemed to rise straight out of the earth, a fang of black rock against a wool-gray sky. Elizabeth’s legs burned from the steep, winding approach, but the ache was secondary to the tightening in her chest. It was one thing to cross a border; it was another to be swallowed whole by the beating heart of a nation that despised your blood.
No one offered her an arm. Lachlan walked a pace ahead, his posture rigid, speaking in low, terse bursts to the grizzled men who fell in beside them at the gate. She was luggage, being delivered.
The castle courtyard was a cacophony of noise and looming stone. Shouts in Gaelic echoed off the walls. The air smelled of wet hay, horse dung, and the sharp, cold tang of the sea. Men stopped to stare, their faces openly curious or openly hostile. She kept her eyes on the worn leather of Lachlan’s jerkin, focusing on the rhythm of his stride, her own borrowed wool blanket—the one from the cliffside—draped tightly over her shoulders like a shield.
She’d hoped for a moment. A chance to wash the travel dust from her skin, to breathe, to gather the shattered pieces of her courage. It was a naïve hope.
A priest in dark robes emerged from a shadowed doorway, his face pinched and pale. He spoke to Lachlan, his eyes flicking to Elizabeth once, quickly, as if checking an item off a list. Lachlan’s jaw tightened. He gave a short, sharp nod.
“Come,” he said, turning to her. His voice offered no explanation.
“Now?” The word escaped before she could stop it.
“Now.”
He didn’t lead her to a hall or a chamber. He led her into the dim, deep silence of the chapel. It was a narrow, high-vaulted space, hewn from the same cold rock as everything else. The only light came from a handful of thick, tallow candles on the altar, their flames guttering in the draft. The air was frigid and stale, smelling of old incense and damp. It felt less like a place of God and more like a tomb.
A handful of men filed in behind them, blocking the door. Witnesses. Or guards. Elizabeth couldn’t tell the difference. Her heart began a frantic, hammering beat against her ribs.
The priest took his place before the altar and began to speak. His voice was a dry, rapid monotone, and the words were all Gaelic. They washed over her, meaningless and oppressive. She caught “Dia” for God, and “anam” for soul, and then that word again, “Sasannach,” this time wrapped in holy liturgy. It sounded like a curse in a prayer.
This was it. This was the transaction. Her uncle’s signature traded for her life, her country, her very name, all sanctified in a language she couldn’t understand. A wave of cold panic, sharper than any she’d felt on the cliff, swept through her. She was disappearing into the sound. She felt her fingers go numb. Her breath hitched, a tiny, audible gasp in the silent chapel.
Lachlan stood beside her, a solid, unmoving pillar. He had been staring straight ahead, his profile carved from stone. But at her small, choked sound, his head turned slightly.
The priest droned on, gesturing to them.
Lachlan’s voice, low and rough, brushed her ear. It was so close she felt the warmth of his breath. “He asks if you come here of your own will.”
She couldn’t speak. She gave the faintest nod.
A pause from the priest. More flowing, alien syllables.
“He says the union is for the peace of the lands,” Lachlan translated, his tone flat, neutral. Just facts. “A joining of two bloods long at war.”
The priest looked at her expectantly. He was waiting for her to say something. She stood frozen, terrified of opening her mouth and making a fool of herself, of dishonoring this awful, sacred moment.
Lachlan’s shoulder touched hers. A deliberate, steadying pressure. “Repeat after me,” he murmured, the sound for her alone. “Tha mi… a’ guidhe.”
She swallowed. “Tha mi… a’ guidhe.” The sounds felt clumsy and thick on her tongue.
The priest seemed satisfied. He spoke again, longer this time, his hands lifting.
Lachlan listened, then leaned in again. His voice was still low, but something in it had changed. It was slower. “This part is the vow.” A beat. “In the sight of God… and these witnesses… I pledge my faith to you.” He paused, letting the English words hang in the cold air between them before the priest continued. “My body to guard. My honor to keep with yours. In sunlight and in shadow. Until my life’s end.”
It was not the flowery, Latin-soaked vow of an English wedding. It was stark. It was a brutal, beautiful promise of protection and fidelity. It made her shiver.
“You say it now,” he whispered. “Just the Gaelic. Dheth seo…”
She followed him, phrase by clumsy phrase, her voice gaining strength as she understood the weight of the foreign sounds. My body to guard. My honor to keep with yours. She wasn’t just repeating noise. She was binding herself to the man beside her, to his storms and his silences, to the cliffs and the oatcakes and the grudging blanket offered in the dark.
When it was his turn, he spoke his vows in clear, firm Gaelic directly to the priest. But his eyes, in the flickering candlelight, found hers. He didn’t translate them aloud. He didn’t need to. She heard the same solemn intent in the rhythm, saw it in the unblinking focus of his gray-green gaze. He was promising the same things. To her.
The priest produced two simple, wide bands of hammered silver. Lachlan took one. He reached for her left hand. His fingers were warm, calloused, completely enveloping hers as he slid the cool metal over her knuckle. It was a shock, that touch. Purposeful and intimate. Her skin tingled where his brushed it.
She took the other ring. His hand was steady as she fumbled the band onto his finger. It was like putting a harness on a stallion. The reality of it—of him—was immense.
The priest said a final blessing. Then it was over. No fanfare. No kiss. The men by the door shifted their weight.
Lachlan turned to face her fully. He was now her husband. The word screamed in her head, hollow and strange. He studied her face for a long moment, as if looking for something. Fear? Resentment? She didn’t know what he saw.
“It’s done,” he said, his voice back to its normal, pragmatic timber. But his eyes were still on hers, holding that strange, assessing light.
“So it is,” she managed, her own voice barely a whisper.
He offered his arm, not with ceremony, but with a blunt practicality. She took it, her fingers resting on the rough wool of his sleeve. The silver ring felt foreign on her hand, a new, cool weight. As he led her out of the chapel’s gloom, the blanketing silence between them wasn’t empty. It was thick with the echo of the promises they’d just made, in two languages, understood by one.